Premier League 2016/17 Player Power Rankings: Matchday 5

Five games into the season now and the table is beginning to take shape. New signings are starting to settle, cracks are starting to show, and opinions are starting to form.

After what was an extremely goal-heavy weekend, we’ve seen Manchester City already make massive leaps towards the title, a huge win from Watford, and the continuation of Stoke City’s highly unexpected poor form.

Honourable Mentions:

Jordan Henderson (Liverpool)

Christian Fuchs (Leicester)

Islam Slimani (Leicester)

Nacer Chadli (West Brom)

Andros Townsend (Crystal Palace)

20 – Theo Walcott (Arsenal)

Walcott managed to grab his second goal of the season in Arsenal’s emphatic victory against Hull, who have so far massively exceeded expectations.

19 – Jason Puncheon (Crystal Palace)

After picking up an assist against Stoke, Puncheon sneaks into the rankings after what has been an impressive start to his season.

18 – Heung-Min Son (Tottenham Hotspur)

Despite not directly contributing in Tottenham’s hard-fought win over Sunderland, Son did have a fairly impressive game, and having picked up two goals and an assist in the previous week, he keeps his place in the rankings.

17 – Kyle Walker (Tottenham Hotspur)

Walker has continued to produce the performances we saw from him in the Euros, and if he keeps it up, I’m sure he’ll nail down his place as England’s first-choice right-back.

16 – Dmitri Payet (West Ham)

Speaking of players who’ve been keeping up their Euro 2016 form, Dmitri Payet is back, and although West Ham currently sit in the relegation zone, Payet is joint-first in terms of assists after bagging his third of the season against West Brom.

15 – Jamie Vardy (Leicester City)

Although Vardy and Leicester are yet to recreate the sort of performances we saw from them last season, it does appear both are starting to get warmed up as Vardy got himself an assist in what was probably his best performance of the season so far against Burnley.

14 – Robert Snodgrass (Hull City)

Much like Hull, Snodgrass has had a surprisingly good season so far, and this is yet to come to a halt as he got his side’s only goal against Arsenal on the weekend.

13 – Leroy Fer (Swansea)

Fer sees himself drop in the rankings this week after he was unable to make a difference in Swansea’s 1-0 loss to Southampton.

12 – Eden Hazard (Chelsea)

After his blistering start to the season, Hazard’s form has started to level off in his last couple of matches, so he consequently drops in the rankings.

11 – Zlatan Ibrahimovic (Manchester United)

Ibrahimovic has had a similar couple of games to Hazard, so both will be looking to get back amongst the goals this weekend.

10 – Romelu Lukaku (Everton)

Lukaku started the season pretty slowly, but four goals and an assist in his last two games see him hit the top ten in our rankings.

9 – Harry Kane (Tottenham)

Harry Kane has started the season almost entirely under the radar, but he’s picked up his goal-scoring form again and will be looking to keep it up this weekend.

8 – Kelechi Iheanacho (Manchester City)

In the absence of Sergio Aguero due to suspension, there were questions over whether Iheanacho would be able to fill his boots adequately, and he certainly has, picking up three goals and two assists since being called to action.

7 – Michail Antonio (West Ham)

Despite West Ham’s low position in the league table, Antonio is joint-top scorer in the Premier League, and has looked absolutely quality since his first ever England call-up.

6 – Alexis Sanchez (Arsenal)

After Arsenal got off to a pretty poor start, there were many doubts over whether they had the firepower to even challenge for the top-four this season. But firepower is what Alexis Sanchez has supplied since, getting his third and fourth goals of the season against Hull on the weekend.

5 – Etienne Capoue (Watford)

Capoue and Watford keep proving their doubters wrong, as the Frenchman picked up his fourth goal of the season in his side’s unexpected 3-1 win against Manchester United.

4 – Curtis Davies (Hull City)

Although he may have had four goals put past him and his defence on the weekend, there is no doubt that he has been the outstanding centre-back of the season so far, and he’ll be hoping to keep a clean sheet this weekend to make up for what happened against Arsenal.

3 – Raheem Sterling (Manchester City)

Pep Guardiola has quite clearly turned this player around, as Sterling got himself two more goals in Manchester City’s 4-0 rout of Bournemouth.

2 – Diego Costa (Chelsea)

As a striker, your primary objective is to score goals, and despite Chelsea losing to Liverpool on Friday, he still managed to record his fifth of the season.

1 – Kevin De Bruyne (Manchester City)

Quite clearly the best player in the league at the moment, there have been talks as to whether he might be up there as a serious contender for the Ballon d’Or once the Messi/Ronaldo era is complete. And you could see exactly why against Bournemouth, as he continued his scintillating form with a goal and an assist in what was probably the outstanding individual performance of the weekend.